Page 36 of Smut

“You’re lucky I don’t keep conditioner in my hair for very long. One minute and it’s rinsed.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, though I see the flash of anger and disappointment at her revenge not working.

I decide to push it. “In fact,” I tell her with a grin, tugging at a strand. “I think it’s shinier and thicker than ever.”

I know I’m playing with fire here but I just can’t help it.

“Do you even remember my name?” she asks, her tone pure ice.

“Do we have to go down this path?” I tell her, shooting her another smile that I know makes my dimples pop, one of the things she kept commenting on when I took her out. Because, no, I don’t remember her name. Susan comes to mind but I think that’s because she’s the character in The Heart Thief.

She takes a few steps until her petite frame is right beside mine and brings the tray of beer dangerously close to my head. “Tell me my name or this beer is going all over you.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I say to her in a hush.

She raises her brows to say she would.

Cindy? Sandra? Cersei? I wish she was wearing a nametag.

“Stella?” I offer, wincing because I know it’s wrong.

“Stella is the name of the other waitress you fucked over here,” she seethes. The tray wiggles. I shut my eyes. “It’s Magdalene.”

You think I would have remembered that. “Like the biblical hooker?”

Her eyes narrow. The tray tilts. The pint glasses slant toward me.

Crash!

Beer goes everywhere, over my head, over my shoulders, my lap, my legs.

I’m legit sitting in a beer shower.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” she cries out in a string of lies.

She pretends to fuss over me while I sit there, soaked from head to toe, the beer pints rolling on the table. She’s lucky none of them broke and I’m lucky one didn’t knock me on the head. The last thing I need right now is a concussion, though with everyone on the patio, plus onlookers, staring at me, losing consciousness would be preferable.

“Oh dear, I’m so clumsy,” she adds, bringing her washcloth to my crotch and patting it there —hard. It’s like she’s playing Whack-A-Mole with my dick.

“Jesus,” I hiss, trying to protect my balls. “Do you want me to report you for manhandling the customer?”

“I’ll get Stella, the manager, to clean this up,” she says smartly before turning and storming into the pub.

Stella too? Fuck me. I get up, absolutely dripping pale ale and porter, and yell after her, “Luckily beer is good for my hair too!”

I throw a few twenties on the table and get out of there before something worse happens.

“Dude!” Heath yells at me, laughing, as I pass by him and the blondes. “It’s Karma, dude.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I growl at him as the blondes giggle and quickly head home to shower.

After the bar antics, I play it safe for the rest of the weekend. Last I texted Amanda she was still down for our meeting on Sunday night, so Sunday morning when my dad says he needs someone to watch Kevin while he and Angelica go to a friend’s for lunch, I volunteer.

When I pull up to the house, I’m not surprised to see Kevin sitting glumly on the front stoop, plastic sword in hand that he’s whacking against the steps. With his glasses and cape sprawled around him, he looks like a nerdy and bored warrior waiting between battles.

I grew up in a small house in the woods on the Saanich Peninsula. It was up on a small crest, didn’t get a lot of sun, though you could kind of see the ocean through the giant cedars if you squinted hard enough. It was an upscale neighborhood though, with lots of whitewashed mansions and groomed acreages, many waterfront with their own docks. Our house was this tiny little ugly dot, like a tick amongst everything fresh and healthy, but even though my mother was glad to get out of there when she took me to England, I was heartbroken. I didn’t want to leave my dad and I loved that small, dark place with the mossy roof and the rain collection barrel where I’d watch bugs drown.

The minute my dad met Angelica though, he sold the house. Now they live in one of those sprawling houses my mother had envied and my dad is living the charmed life.

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